Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

600 people are diagnosed with leprosy every day; Your chance to make a simple ‘positive action pledge'

For World Leprosy Day – 29 January 2023, UK Lepra is urging people to pledge positive action to help raise awareness regarding this mysterious and elusive disease.

600 people are diagnosed with leprosy every day;  Your chance to make a simple ‘positive action pledge'

UK-based charity, Lepra has been at the forefront of treatment, care, support, and research of leprosy for the last 99 years.

Over its long history, Lepra has gained important insights into this highly complex disease. It also helped develop the first effective cure for leprosy in the 1950s.


Therefore, for World Leprosy Day - 29 January 2023, UK Lepra is urging people to pledge positive action to help raise awareness regarding this mysterious and elusive disease that continues to challenge scientists and health professionals alike.

Every year, roughly 200,000 new cases of leprosy are reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), although the COVID-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on new case detection in recent years.

Since it is no longer present in Europe, leprosy has largely become a forgotten disease. But it reportedly continues to affect millions of the world’s most vulnerable people, causing lifelong disability and discrimination.

And roughly 60% of all cases occur in one country alone: India.

Also, though many people may think that leprosy is a disease of the past, Lepra explains that it is still very much of the present.

The prognosis

Leprosy reportedly affects over seven million people across the world, with numbers continuing to rise.  This disease causes damage to people’s health, livelihoods, and futures.

Every day, 600 people are diagnosed with leprosy, and 50 of these are children.

Over thousands of years, leprosy developed a fearsome reputation, as a disease that spread throughout humanity with terrible consequences and no known cure.

According to Lepra, there is currently no vaccine for leprosy and its routes of transmission and prevalence are not fully understood.

There is also no easy diagnostic test to confirm infection.

Furthermore, the incubation period of this disease in the body can be anywhere between 5 and 20 years.

However, the good news is that leprosy is entirely curable.

Since the 1980s, millions of people have taken a free and available game-changing multidrug therapy that kills the leprosy bacteria in the body.

However, the trick is early diagnosis of the disease, so that people can get quick access to the cure and in turn, reduce the chances of developing lifelong disabilities brought on by the disease.

The WHO states that leprosy is curable and if treated in the early stages, disability can be prevented.

This chronic infectious disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, the mucosal surfaces of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes.

Lepra’s plans

In 2023, Lepra’s focus is on innovative, person-centred treatment and research programmes in isolated and hard-to-reach communities in India and Bangladesh.

Besides working to support the health of those affected by Leprosy, Lepra also supports the social and psychological impacts of the disease.

The charity also provides training to grassroots health providers and raises awareness to break down the myths which still prevail.

For World Leprosy Day, you can help Lepra's ‘Shine a Light on Leprosy’ campaign by pledging to help raise awareness about this disease.

To view examples of the positive actions you can take and to make your own pledge, you can visit Lepra’s website.

Greater awareness about leprosy will help Lepra support community healthcare and research into the future, improving the effectiveness of case detection, treatment, and holistic care, and helping reach the WHO’s target to end transmission of leprosy by 2030.

More For You

Milton-Keynes

Eyewitnesses described hearing shouting before the shooting

iStock

Man shot dead by police outside Milton Keynes railway station

A MAN was shot dead by police outside Milton Keynes Central station after reports that he was carrying a firearm.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) said officers were called to the station at 12:55, where they challenged a suspect carrying a knife. The man moved towards officers before police fired at him.

Keep ReadingShow less
EXCLUSIVE: Eastern Eye wins press freedoms to help judges

SCRUTINY: The tribunal’s favourable verdict is an important win for accountability, say current and retired Asian judges (Pic credit: Getty Images/Leon Neal)

EXCLUSIVE: Eastern Eye wins press freedoms to help judges

A tribunal has ordered the body which appoints judges in England and Wales to disclose records it refused to give to Eastern Eye.

The decision is a major victory for press freedoms because it forces the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) to become more open and transparent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sunita-Williams-Reuters

Sunita Williams was part of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission and had been stranded in space for over nine months. (Photo: Reuters)

Reuters)

India looks amazing from space, says Sunita Williams

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams described India as "amazing" from space and expressed her intention to visit her "father's home country" to share her experiences on space exploration.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, she responded to a question about how India appeared from space and the possibility of collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Keep ReadingShow less
british-muslims-iStock

The study noted that this identification was not due to any doctrinal obligation but was influenced by the perception that many Muslims do not feel fully accepted as British. (Representational image: iStock)

iStock

Majority of British Muslims identify by faith first, study finds

A STUDY by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) has found that most British Muslims identify primarily with their religion rather than their nationality.

The research, based on a survey of 815 British Muslim adults by Whitestone Insight, revealed that 71 per cent of respondents identified as Muslim first, while 27 per cent identified as British, English, or Scottish first.

Keep ReadingShow less
Car Tax Changes: EV Owners Now Required to Pay for the First Time

Owners of electric vehicles registered on or after 1 April 2025 will pay £10 for the first year, followed by the standard VED rate of £195 from the second year. (Representational image: iStock)

iStock

Car tax changes take effect: EV owners to pay for first time

FROM today, 1 April 2025, electric cars, vans, and motorcycles in the UK will be subject to Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) for the first time.

The change, introduced in the 2022 Autumn Statement by former Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, aims to make motoring taxation fairer.

Keep ReadingShow less